User blog:Heaven's Agent/Fan-Content, Part the First
When any game supports an increased level of character customization, it seems members of that game's community put more effort into their characters than they may otherwise. This was readily apparent with City of Heroes, and continues to hold true, possibly to an even greater degree, with Champions Online. A game Wiki may not be the most apparent outlet of that creativity, but it is something I want to support when individuals come here seeking such an resource. That said, this project is primarily an encyclopedic resource, its purpose to document both Champions Online and the Champions IP. It's important to keep what is seen as canonical and what is fan-created separate. Therefor, I'm considering the following ideas, which I hope will eventually be condensed into a general project policy: Player Characters Player Characters (PCs) need their own place within the project where a User can document their creations. Generally speaking, a User's namespace already fulfills this purpose, and it would be a small matter to create subpages to facilitate such articles. That said, there are other options to consider as well. That said, there are some considerations that would have to be followed regardless of method chosen. First, all such articles would have to remain outside the project's general Category Structure; I don't want to see PCs showing up in Category:Heroes. Second, they would have to be included in a separate Category for articles specifically about PCs. This category would eventually be linked to a parent category for all fan-created content. ; User Namespace :This would likely be the most straightforward method of creating a PC article. A subpage of the User's namespace would be created bearing the name of the PC to be documented, i.e. User:Heaven's Agent/Greatest Hero Ever. As part of the User's namespace, the same usage considerations would automatically apply. :* the User would be the only one to modify the page, except in the case where an Admin stepped in to revert vandalism or violation of the project's other usage policies. :* These articles would not be linked from or referenced on the project's general articles, but could link to them. Using my previous example, the article on Doctor Destroyer could not include a sentence stating that the villain is the father of Greatest Hero Ever, but the PC page could state as much. :* Such articles would be more difficult to find within the project, requiring the use of some sort of fan-content Table of Contents (ToC). ; Article Prefix :Not a normal method of providing PC pages within a wiki project, but often used for other fan-created articles (detailed below). Essentially, a single prefix is created for all PC articles, followed by the PC's name, i.e. PC:Grestest Hero Ever. :* Usage of such articles would have to be defined: user-only or public, limitation of content, etc. :* It would be easier to run a random search for PCs, by simply typing the prefix into the Search Box and letting the software automatically populate with articles. :* May require a template included at the top of the article denoting it as fan-created content and not part of the IP or online game. Supergroups I recognize the need and desire of supergroups to get their name out there on as many resource sites as possible. Some projects ban such articles in general, but I'm hesitant to do this outright. While it's true such articles are often greater targets of infighting and vandalism, they can also be a great addition to a wiki project. I know of only one method of facilitating this adequately, through the use of an Article Prefix as described above. If Supergroups were to be allowed unique articles, a separate sub-policy would likely need to be created; for now, I just want to consider whether they should be included at all. ; Usage :Supergroup articles would most likely be defined as limited access. Treated as a blend between User namespace and general article, we would have to define which users could actually edit such content. Some possibilities of facilitating this would be creation of a separate Wikia account that would have sole rights to edit said article. Another would be limiting the right to edit such an article to the individual who created it in the first place, though because Supergroup leadership is by neccessity fluid this could cause problems later on. ; Scope :A Supergroup article on this project should not be seen as a substitute for a Supergroup website. Contact information for a Supergroup's leadership and recruiters could be acceptable, but a general member listing would not. Likewise, it shouldn't be seen as a method of coordinating Supergroup members or reporting achievements. In essence it would be an advertisement: some text, maybe some images, a link to the Supergroup website. Maybe links to fan-created content housed elsewhere on this project (I would want to limit external links as much as possible for this purpose). Images Screenshots, artwork, graphics, logos; with the inclusion of fan-created content comes the desire to illustrate such content. Generally speaking any uploads to a wiki project should be adequately named, describing what the image itself represents. This would hold true with fan-created or focused images as well, but there should be a means of differentiating them from the project's other images. ; Image Names :Images would be branded. The User that uploaded the image would incude their User name in the image's name, i.e. ' '. They would be lumped in one or several Categories, based on their useage within the project. ; Image Usage:Not normally required for an uploaded image, it would probably best to include a section detailing what the image depicts, and how it is intended to be used within the project. ; Licensing :A big consideration that I need to add as a project-wide policy: all media uploads MUST be licensed! Text within a Wikia project is automatically covered under the CC-BY-SA. This is not necessarily the case with non-text content. A series of templates are the easiest method of signifying an image's licensing, some of which are already in place (see Category:Copyright tags), but it is essential that they be included. Any fan-content media that does not include licensing would have to be deleted. Fan-Fiction and Comics Is there a reason to allow these? They would either need to be article subpages, linked to a parent User Page or Supergroup article, or possibly take the form of User Blog Entries; Wikia's Blog functionality is a great resource that shouldn't be overlooked, and as part of a User's namespace their topic(s) is generally left up to the decision of the User. Time to Take a Breather Anyway, these are my thoughts for now, solidified into what ended up being a textual behemoth. I would appreciate any comments, feedback, or suggestion, especially from any Users that have already expressed an interest in including such content. After there's been sufficient time to consider what's been posted and brought up, I'll condense everything into a preliminary policy and we can see where we go from there. Until then, take care and be sure to check for Irradiates in your kitchen; they have a tendency to scurry out and ook for food when the lights go out... - HA Category:Blog posts